How did this happen? How did everything go from great and dreamlike to?—
My heart stopped in my chest when Emerson's eyes met mine. The first responders had come and had taken Henry and Derek down to the lobby. Emerson was getting her stuff so she could go with them, but not before she turned around and glared at me.
How did I fuck this up so horribly?
I fell into Henry's vacated seat, feeling like the world was crashing down on me.
“This wouldn't have happened if you would've just prepared for the meeting,” Emerson spat as soon as we got home. I hadn't even had time to close the door.
She’d been quiet after returning from the hospital, and then the silence in the car on the way here had been deafening. Even with Cristian and Leslie reassuring me that it would be alright, I could see the looks on everyone else’s faces.
If I were someone else, I’d have been fired on the spot.
It wasn’t hard to come to the conclusion that people at the office now knew what was going on between us, and I’d been beating myself up about it all day too.
“I'm sorry I just… I was busy with?—”
“Not doing your job?” she asked, turning to look at me.
I slammed the door behind me, the sound sending us both into silence.
“Emerson, how was I supposed to know he had an allergy?”
“It's in the fucking notes, Pearl. The notes we have on all our clients and board members? Have you even looked at them once since you started?”
That shut me up really quick because I hadn't. I didn’t even know they existed.
“You should have walked me through it. A good manager would have?—”
“It’s a simple fucking job, Pearl. Were the labeled folders not clear enough for you?”
“You’re being cruel,” I said, tears filling my eyes.
“A man almostdied, Pearl.A man who is part of the board. You know, the group of people that makes decisions for the company? Did you know they could vote me out for something like this? Especially since some of them are misogynistic pigs to begin with?”
Her words shocked me into silence.
“I didn’t know…” I breathed. “And I apologize. I obviously didn’t mean for him to get hurt. But… I’m not just your assistant. You don’t need to?—”
She let out a scoff.
“This is who I am, Pearl. You’ve known that from the beginning. If you were anyone else, you would've been fired long ago.”
Her words cut me open like a knife. I knew it was true, but to hear her say it like that…
And yes, she was right. I had known who she was all along. I was probably the one person on the planet who knew just how awful Emerson could be.
What made it all worse was that I also knew how wonderful she could be. Just this morning, we’d been so happy together.
And now it’s all about to go up in flames.
I felt useless. Worthless. I went right back to my default mode of wanting to hide because when people didn’t notice you, you couldn’t mess up. If people didn’t see you, you’d be okay.
And I’d just realized Emerson really saw me, but she didn’t really like what she saw.
I didn’t want to cry in front of her, especially when she was glaring at me the way she was, and while I didn’t want to fight with her, that was the only other way to go.
“Long ago, huh? How many times did I mess up and you didn’t tell me? Am I only good for you to fuck? Why didn’t you fire me? You couldn’t bear to be separated from your sex slave?” I asked, my voice low and my tone bitter, words coming out of my mouth that I never thought I’d say.
